Weird News

Monopoly: The game that helped WWII POWs escape

(NEWSER) – Monopoly was more than a game for many World War II POWs, who used tools hidden in the boxed sets to help them escape. The story's been told before, but Christian Donland at Eurogamer looks deeply into the life of a high-strung, eccentric British intelligence officer named Clayton Hutton, who designed the escape tools and had them shipped to POWs in Monopoly games. The boxes arrived from phony charities with clues in their letterhead, like the Biblical lines, "Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you." POWs could also spot them by the red dot on the Free Parking space, notes the Atlantic. Inside, they found shears, metal files, a silk escape map, mini-compass, and money in the local currency.